This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

How to make toolbars more compact like other modern browsers?

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by pkcinna

pkcinna
pkcinna
more options

It would make sense to have a "compact" format option for people used to browsers like Chrome. It seems there are about 20 wasted pixels both above and below the awesome bar (when bookmarks bar is visible).

If you are using XUbuntu or other linux, you can see that chrome uses about 30 pixels less for toolbars at top when bookmarks bar is visible in both. Most the space is wasted between awesome bar and bookmarks bar but padding around all toolbars and tabs could be less (or make it a simple config setting since customizing a theme gets too complex... negative margins are needed among other hacks and assumptions).

The upload image feature of the mozilla support page is not working so cannot show example (tried FF and chrome).

It would make sense to have a "compact" format option for people used to browsers like Chrome. It seems there are about 20 wasted pixels both above and below the awesome bar (when bookmarks bar is visible). If you are using XUbuntu or other linux, you can see that chrome uses about 30 pixels less for toolbars at top when bookmarks bar is visible in both. Most the space is wasted between awesome bar and bookmarks bar but padding around all toolbars and tabs could be less (or make it a simple config setting since customizing a theme gets too complex... negative margins are needed among other hacks and assumptions). The upload image feature of the mozilla support page is not working so cannot show example (tried FF and chrome).

All Replies (2)

the-edmeister
the-edmeister
  • Moderator
more options

Which version of Firefox are you using? The one from Mozilla? Or the one that comes with Ubuntu and its variants, and is installed from the Ubuntu repository?

There's a difference in the way Firefox handles the "Title bar" in the various Operating Systems - Windows, Linux, Mac OSX.

Ubuntu builds its own version from Firefox source code, plus (as I have read) it comes with an Ubuntu extension that affects certain aspects of the UI (affects the "theme"). So mods done for Linux builds of Firefox might be a little different with some 'selectors'.

As far as 'fixing' the toolbars to be more compact, you might want to check the Ubuntu support fora for tips. I don't use Ubuntu currently so I'm no help directly, but I'm pretty sure other support contributors might be able to help later in the day in this thread.

I do "compact" mods to the toolbars as you are describing using CSS rules / User Styles for Firefox on Win7. https://userstyles.org/ Problem is finding what you want via a search and then figuring out if it will work for you when you running Linux or Mac, as sometimes a minor tweaking of the code might be needed depending upon the OS the person who created the User Style was using https://forum.userstyles.org/

Or you can check the AMO website for compact extensions or compact themes.

pkcinna
pkcinna Question owner
more options

Thanks. Hopefully your suggestions about css, extensions and themes will help others but the easiest path for me is probably to continue using Chrome since I don't want to investigate different community provided themes or extensions any further.

I'm using the mozilla that ships with XUbuntu but the problem exists on windows too (not as bad). I wasted a lot of time a few years ago trying to get spacing right with css when mozilla changed the layout. I came to the conclusion it is not possible to get even spacing without making some assumptions about operating system and what toolbars were visible. The solution I came up with also used negative css margins which seemed like a hack too.